Amritsar: Dismissed IRB jawan among four nabbed for looting dry fruit

Four persons, including a jawan dismissed from the Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB), have been arrested by the Amritsar (Rural) police in connection with the looting of dry fruit and grocery items from a cold storage at Ibban Kalan village a week ago.

Those arrested include Thana Singh of Basti Malsia, Zira, sacked IRB jawan Jaswinder Kumar of Thathi village in Gurdaspur, Parveen Singh of Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar, Zira, and Ravinder Singh of Adampur.

The police have recovered 29 bags of black pepper, 40 bags of black gram, 189 cashew tins, 30 cashew boxes, 62 boxes of figs, 47 boxes of raisins, 76 almond buckets, five turmeric bags and three bags of dry dates from their possession.

Amritsar (Rural) SSP Charanjit Singh said the prime accused Thana had 11 cases of dacoity and the NDPS Act registered against him. He said Jaswinder and Ravinder also had one case each against them.

The SSP said the robbery was planned by Thana and Dilsher Singh of Sangna village at the Amritsar Central Jail in November last year.

Dilsher used to ferry dry fruit and grocery items from Majith Mandi to Ibban Kalan cold store. He along with Thana did the recee but Dilsher did not accompany them during the dacoity, added the SSP.

A total of 16 persons were involved in the crime and out of them 13 had come to the cold storage for robbery.

He said Parveen owned the godown where they had stashed the stolen material. Some of the goods were recovered from Adampur, the police said. The truck used in the crime was also stolen one.

The incident had led to panic among the traders who claimed that dry fruit and grocery items worth several crores were looted from the spot. Even Cabinet Ministers Kuldeep Dhaliwal and Harbhajan Singh ETO, besides MLAs Ajay Gupta had also visited the spot after the incident.